For what it’s worth, the idea of reciprocity provides an understanding for growing children trying to grasp their way in navigating the vast space that is the world. You tell them how the world is like a mirror, a reflection of themselves. A moral compass to cling to: do as you like to be done to you. A smile will get you a smile back. Birthday gifts for others will ensure a mountain of presents in your own birthday.
It’s a quite ridiculous concept actually, that you will get what you put out. We believe them as if the universe obeys them. As if your kindness will find its way back to you. As if other children grew up clinging to it as hard as you do.
Most times, you’ll find out the hard way. Like a newly published paper reporting emerging evidence proving wrong a theory the world believed for centuries. It will not be quick, like finding out how the tooth fairy is actually just your parents slipping money beneath your pillow. It’ll be a gradual erosion of your faith, leaving you empty as the last piece was taken away. Then you can no longer see the world the way you did before.
Other times, you’ll see the ugly in the world and believe it to be the exact reflection of your equally ugly soul. That you deserve the horrid view. So you put up a wall.
Because if you stop radiating, the world will stop reflecting.
Because you cannot bear the sight.
Because no other person is there to prove you wrong.
